Demolition derby sets sail

Super-fast Extreme 40s and their chaotic races are attracting some of the world’s top sailors, says Sean Newsom

Move over Ellen MacArthur. Sailing has a new hero, and it's not a person, it's a boat. Last weekend, 11 Extreme 40 catamarans came to Cowes at the start of the famous regatta, and in the course of three days of racing, packed with high-speed collisions and cartwheeling crashes, they took the sailing world by storm.

By the end of the event, the boats had notched up three collisions, three broken masts, and even one snapped hull. Most eye-catching of all were the three "pitchpole" capsizes, in which the catamarans buried their bows into the waves, upended themselves and flipped over. Crew members were either flung (or jumped) from the boat, or were left clinging like seaweed from the netting slung between the two hulls.

"Once a pitchpole starts, there's not much you can do about it," says Alister Richardson, helmsman of Team Aqua, who survived such a capsize on